Tag: myanimelist

For all its faults, MyAnimeList is one of the best places to organize all the anime we’ve watched and it can be fun learn how public opinion for said anime fares over the course of its run. It is also unqualifiedly AWFUL!

(and yes, Chrome spell check, unqualifiedly IS a word, I checked!)

Everybody knows MAL has never a particularly accurate way to gauge the critical value of any given show. For one thing, its underlying business model hews closer to “marketing and e-book sales”.

Viewers naturally tend to under-rate anime they hate or over-rate shows they love, which means any MAL score must be taken with a veritable Makgadikgadi Pan of salt, especially since scores aren’t even factored into the average if a user hasn’t watched more than 20% of the show.

And yet, we still go there, we still post the shows we’re watching or have completed, and we still contribute what we feel to be fair scores to anime we watch. A MAL score will never be the determining factor in whether we watch a show, but it would be disingenuous to declare they have no influence on anyone.

So How Awful is MAL so far this Spring? Let’s go show by show, comparing both our current score—along with an estimate of the expected final average score – to that of MAL. We found that sometimes MAL still does get it right…at least from our perspective.

(Note that there aren’t any Spring shows we believe to be “TOO HIGH!” on MAL—at least not yet—though that doens’t mean it doesn’t happen: TenSura, OverLord III, Grand Blue, and Banana Fish are all past shows we scored much lower than their MAL averages.)

All Verdicts Are FINAL…but if you respectfully disagree with any of the below, feel free to voice your alternative opinions in the ‘ments!

Progress: 1/24RAB Score: 10Expected Final Score: 8.75MAL Score: 8.17 (-0.88)Verdict:TOO LOW!Notes: Just a very underwhelming initial score for the best first episode of the Spring. 10 may be overdoing it a bit; 8.5 seems more fair down the stretch.-Zane

Progress: 2/13RAB Score: 9.00Expected Final Score: 8.10MAL Score: 7.20Verdict:TOO LOW!Notes: Yes, it’s another high school harem, but so far it has been executed almost perfectly, featuring vibrant characters with solid motivations. A mid-to-high 7 score would be more fair here.-Zane

Progress: 15/25RAB Score: 8.27Expected Final Score: 8.40MAL Score: 8.38Verdict:JUST RIGHT!Notes: Another fair score, but if the show gets too mired in Naofumi’s victimization rather than the world-saving aspect, our score could drop lower.-Hannah

Progress: 2/24RAB Score: 7.00Expected Final Score: 7.20MAL Score: 6.57Verdict:TOO LOW!Notes: Also not by much. Looks better than the above, but lacks compelling characters, and 24 eps of them feels like a major slog.-Preston

Here they are, dear readers: all 44 series we watched this year (five dropped), ranked by their cumulative ratings as of today. Seven Fall shows still have one episode to go this year, so we’ll update this list as we complete them.

We’ve also included what the thousands of denizens over at MyAnimeList(MAL) thought about these same shows (again, as of today). One of the reasons we switched to a 10-point rating scale is so we could roughly compare our ratings to MAL’s.

Analysis: While we’ve always thought we had a tendency to overrate things, we actually gave 21 non-dropped shows lower ratings than MAL, while rating 18 shows higher.

Our ratings actually came quite close to MAL’s—within 0.4 points or less—on a dozen shows:

Kimi no Iru Machi (+0.020)

Amnesia (+0.077)

OreShura (+0.082)

Tamayura: More Aggressive (+0.177)

Maoyuu Maou Yuusha (+0.217)

Kyousougiga (+0.310)

Free! (-0.013)

Nagi no Asukara (-0.177)

Oreimo 2 (-0.242)

Vividred Operation (-0.273)

Tamako Market (-0.320)

Kakumeiki Valvrave 2nd Season (-0.375)

MAL also agreed with us that Valvrave’s second season has been better than the first.

The biggest outliers (not counting dropped shows) were Aku no Hana (we rated it 1.358 points higher than MAL), and The Unlimited(we rated it 1.290 points lower than MAL). There’s a good reason for each: Aku was incredibly polarizing, while The Unlimited likely went over better for those familiar with the Zettai Karen Children universe (which we weren’t).

In all, we were off of MAL’s scores by +/- 1 full point or more on only six non-dropped shows. By no means do we strive to match the average consensus from MAL (we just looked them up today), but it’s fun to compare, and it’s good to know we’re not totally insane about our taste in anime. We may be way off the consensus on a few occasions, but that comes down to personal preference, which is unique to everyone.

Finally, we decided to write a haiku either summarizing the show or our impressions of it…with, er, varying results. Enjoy, and Happy Holidays!

We’re nearly halfway through Winter 2012 – it’s been a mercifully mild one here in RABUJOIland (knock on wood), and we’re very much done with the whole coldness and no leaves on the trees thing. When April comes around we’ll be saying goodbye to ten series and carrying over with only three (two if Rinne no Lagrange doesn’t continue), so something will have to fill that void.

We’ve selected five in our usual manner – picking series that look promising while learning as little as possible about them. Some may not pan out, others not on this list might be picked up. The list is below; mirroring the “Plan to Watch” portion of our MyAnimeList. One immediate observation: no ludicrously long titles…everything’s nice and tidy!

RABUJOI has finally entered the 21st Century and will no longer be relying solely on its proprietary html code to keep it’s watchlist straight. Instead, we’ll update our anime-watchin’ info on MyAnimeList, like everyone else. Click here or on the MAL logo above to see our profile. Click here for the list itself. What a time to be alive!